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Intel's GEM-Free UMS Driver Still Doesn't Fix Things

08-08-2010, 11:10 PM

Phoronix: Intel's GEM-Free UMS Driver Still Doesn't Fix Things

Towards the end of last month we reported on GEM-free UMS support for the Intel driver that was worked on by Intel's Chris Wilson to hopefully address the stability issues and other problems that have challenged owners of old Intel i8xx hardware running the newer Intel driver stack, which is presently limited to kernel mode-setting support with GEM (the Graphics Execution Manager) memory management. However, it seems the work invested into adding back user-space mode-setting support to the Intel driver without the kernel memory management still doesn't resolve the i8xx issues at hand...

Adding another code path and making users have to chose whether or not they want KMS is just stupid. Just fix older hardware to work with KMS. You have all the documentation and examples of old working drivers.

Comment

I think you have it backwards. You cannot fix the older hardware... it's already released and cannot be changed. Maybe you can fix the driver, but:

You have all the documentation and examples of old working drivers.

Well there is very little documentation over modesetting. On those older Intel stuff they left much of the implementation details up to the particular motherboard manufacturer. So a lot of the stuff is specific to specific motherboards and laptops.

Normally I would agree with you 100% that there should not be multiple code paths and users should not be forced to choose. In this case the drivers and kernel should automatically use the older cruddy drivers on this older cruddy hardware.

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All I can say is that the Intel 8xx stuff is just intensely bad. It's REALLY REALLY Bad. Even when it was new it was terrible and 3D stuff never worked right in any OS. The GMA stuff was a godsend for people depending on low-cost Intel hardware.

It's worse then "Windows ME" bad.

It's one thing to have new changes to drivers break support for older hardware... that is bad. But when the older hardware never worked right in the first place then it's much less tragic.

If your using this older hardware then give up and buy new stuff. Turn your old laptop into something useful like a low-power file server or router or something. The 915 even though it's fairly ancient now is still massive improvement over the 'Extreme Blaster' series of Intel stuff.

If you cannot then just use the VESA drivers and give up on hardware acceleration. It's not like there really is much of a difference with it enabled in the best of times.

Comment

hi,
im just wondering if there are no problems when switching to UMS and no GEM when the actual plans of distributions is to make X root free. i thought that was one of the biggest advantages of KMS and GEM.

it seems as if there are only few people left hacking on drivers. otherwise i wouldnt understand sentences like:

If your using this older hardware then give up and buy new stuff.

i ve got a i945 and am quite happy with it. no troubles at all so far. well some websites with maps and objects on it with animaion and stuff renders the hardware acceleration performing rather bad.
but supertuxkart for instance does work ok.
theres just something funny: glxgears stuggles hard for frames. but only when using in window. and not moving the mouse. if you move the mouse or expand the window to max the frame ratev doubles, gets stable and the gears run fluently.
gallium seems not to be an option for i8xx does it?

Comment

BTW... before they 'kill it with fire', I'd love to see some real statistics of how many people are still using 855 hardware. Considering how much hardware is more than fast enough, I would find it really hard to believe that there isn't considerable 855 hardware still in use out there (ie, abandoning it seems misguided)